I’ve lived in a lot of places. Some had lots of independent coffee shops, which I always have liked. Others basically just had coffee shop chains similar to Timmy Hoho’s and Starbucks. Of course we are talking before times since Covid was hard on business.
Does it say anything about a place if it essentially only has chains for things like coffee and food? Or not much (a sign of the times)?
Hard to say. It could mean there’s not much of a market for such places, because the people living there like their familiar chains better. It could mean any coffee shop would struggle to turn a profit there, and the big corporate chains are just better able to weather the lean times. It could just mean there’s a dearth of entrepreneurs who want to open coffee shops in that area at that moment.
Regardless of the cause, though, I think we probably agree that the effect is a less vibrant local scene.
Tokyo had lots of independent coffee shops with good service, good coffee, lots of nice treats made on the spot, etc. However, they didn’t open until 11am.
Starbucks let you get your coffee, in the morning, on the way to work and completely conquered the city in short order.
If you went to Tokyo and saw a lot of Starbucks, you would probably think something like, “Oh, they must not have had good coffee, here.” Or maybe, “Those Japanese folks are such slaves to brand names!”
Unless you knew the history, you would probably get the wrong message. And I would expect that the story would be different for each place you visited.
That seems easily solved. Was coffee more of an evening drink in the past?
My guess would be that the dominant view of people who owned cafes was that the whole purpose of coffee drinking was to have a nice, European-style experience of relaxation and deliciousness - like going to have High Tea - not to get drugs into your body, as early and often as possible, to start the day.
In the US, even hippies are trying to get you to buy their incense and rocks, sourced from China. Most other countries aren’t the Ferengi homeland. Opening at 11am is only a problem from the vantage of a person who thinks that turning caffeine into money is the principal concern in life.
Could speak to the demographics of the area. The chain places seem to cater well to daily commuters or people on the go since they are rather efficient at processing many people through as fast as possible and usually have drive-thrus to expedite the process.
Independent shops seem to be favored as a destination and not a stop on the way to somewhere else. Maybe for retirees, students, non-working spouses, etc. for people not in a rush.
I like the independent shops in my area but just don’t have the time to make them my daily stop. Not enough time to park, wait in line behind a couple of women’s tennis club members, trying to be patient with the barista who is doubling as a bus boy, etc.
Seems the coffee shops selling the chill coffee shop experience as opposed to the quick caffeine fix might have been hit harder by the pandemic.
We were friends with a couple who felt like they had to move, for his work, to a blue collar town in the midwest.
A month in, we asked how they liked it. The husband grumbled “Our ethnic restaurants are Olive Garden and Panda Express…”
He sounded so bitter that I didn’t dare ask about coffee… I’d guess it’d be “One Starbucks inside Target, and MacDonald’s.”
Well, to be fair it’s also a problem from the perspective of the person who wants a cup of coffee before 11am.
I think that sort of depends on exactly what you mean by “coffee shop”. In my area a “coffee shop” is usually a diner-type restaurant that serves only breakfast and lunch and closes by 6 or 7 pm at the latest. ( That’s an old-fashioned definition of "coffee shop, but apparently still used here) It might also be called a “donut shop”. They are all independent. They serve ordinary drip coffee , not espresso drinks.
The Starbucks/Dunkin style places tend to be called either “coffeehouses” or “cafes” - there are a couple of independent ones in my neighborhood and a couple of Dunkin Donuts but there isn’t a Starbucks. And what that mostly says to me is that people in my neighborhood don’t buy fancy espresso drinks.
I think that’s probably the #1 determinant. If you have somewhere like say… King County/Seattle, with a large number of young people (second highest percentage of residents 25-34 of counties in the nation), you’re much more likely to have a vibrant coffee scene. Or a college town. They’re more likely to view coffee shops as somewhere that you hang out, kind of like a bar.
But if the demographics of an area are mostly middle-aged people who work for a living and have families, then the coffee drinking habits change- it becomes more about drinking coffee before work, or on the weekends. There’s not that coffee shop culture that you see elsewhere.
You even see this within urban areas. Take the area around Southern Methodist University- there are several smaller, local coffee shops nearby. Go a few miles to the northeast (where I live), and it’s all Starbucks and nothing else.
There are lots of places that serve coffee nearby- every donut shop, gas station, restaurant, etc… but very few actually coffee shops/coffee houses in the classic sense of the term. Which bears out the whole notion that to a lot of working family people, it’s just a drug that wakes you up in the morning, not part of a larger cultural ritual.
What if it has neither modern “coffee shops” nor chains, but only or primarily old-fashioned independent diners and small restaurants?
For some people, going out to breakfast at one of those old diners/restaurants is also a cultural ritual; though it’s a different culture.
What if it has (slightly) old-fashioned “coffee shops”? E.g. Café Central (the one in Vienna) opened in 1876. The old fashion where people sit in a cafe and work, or talk, or read a book or newspaper while drinking coffee.
Always a good sign
find a close apartment/house etc as soon as possible …
In my experience, most of the college kids hanging out in coffee shops are studying, not socializing. Part of that may be a lack of adequate space in shared living environments; part of it may be a desire to treat themselves while they’re enduring a bit of drudgery. For me, the problem was that the library was too quiet; I concentrate better with a wall of background noise. But in any case, I think a lot of the “coffee shop culture” for students is less about hanging out like the characters on Friends, and more about finding a quiet corner table to set up their laptop.
In my college days it seemed to depend on the time of day. If you went to one of the coffee houses at 3 pm, it was mostly studying people. But at 8 pm? It was more of a hangout for people who weren’t interested in drinking.
The age of the area also has a lot to do with it.
I happen to stay in hotels in rapidly expanding suburbias in several states. Off the freeway offramp there’s a 1/2-mile square cluster of retail strip-centers, then a mile or two of houses and apartments and tilt-up concrete light business parks, plus a 4-story hotel or two, then it’s all farmland or forest destined to be turned into more houses and retail next year.
100% of the restaurants and retail there is franchise. None of it is Mom 'n Pop. There will probably be a Starbucks. And there might be another tea or coffee franchise once the retail blob is a bit bigger.
IME if you want to find a Mom n Pop coffeehouse experience you need to be in an area that is at least 20 years old.
Interesting. That makes an intuitive sort of sense but I’m having trouble putting my finger on exactly why that would be.
IMO … New suburbia is peopled almost entirely by young people. Most of whom were themselves the product of post 1980s suburbia. Franchise chains are what they think of as normal. Funky Mom’n’Pops are simply not on their radar. Triply so if the store/restaurant doesn’t have enough of an www / social media presence to be findable in the top 2 results for a search on a phone.